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Available: Q2, 2003
By:Crytek




Interviewed by by Safwat "Helium02"


It’s been a while since we heard from the folks at Crytek. You may remember them a couple of years ago with a benchmarking demo called X-ISLE. Let us pop on over and catch up with what they have been doing the last two years.

Hello, please tell our readers who you are and what part you play in the Crytek team.

My name is Faruk Yerli and I am the CMO and one of the founders of Crytek.

Polybump: now that is new to most folks, so please give us some info regarding your polybump engine and what features will it incorporate.

Polybump is a revolutionary technology. The polybump system, in simple words, permits to obtain the quality and level of detail of a multi-million polygons model on a model with few thousands (or even few hundreds) polygons. It translates directly to higher detailed in-game models, maintaining a higher frame rate during the game. In the polybump section on our website there are various screenshots showing the difference between models
with an without polybump. Check out the Screenshots http://www.crytek.de/screenshots/index.php?sx=polybump

The “CryENGINE” was used to produce the above mentioned benchmarking demo called X-ISLE. What improvements have you made since you first released the demo?

- Integrated highly optimised Physics – See realistic simulated ropes, character-physics, dead-bodies, liquid physics and more special effects of the true next generation!

- Integrated AI Scripting System

- Highly streamlined productivity Tools “What you see is what you Play Editor (WYSIWY-PlayTM)”. This means, edit your game and see the feedback in real-time, play the game in real-time in the editor!
What technologies will you be using to produce textures?

We create our textures in Photoshop and utilizing Polybump as much as possible.

Will there be an editor with the engine for us wannabees to have a play around with?

Yes of course you will love our Editor. It is so easy to use and create Mods. And you can change a lot of stuff.

What would you say makes your “CryENGINE” stand out from the other graphics engines out there?

CryENGINE includes every features what other engines have together and on top of this we have features what others don’t have. Few examples: Awesome Indoors and Outdoors, streamlined game design editor, patent pending volumetric soft Shadows, Polybump, Advanced Physic System, Integrated AI Scripting....

The polybump engine will be standalone or will it be incorporated into the CryENGINE?

Polybump is a standalone technology. Almost every engine can be plugged on top of it to have polybump support. We support also 3DS Max and Maya with highly optimised plugins.

AI: How does the AI behave and will we get the chance to create our own AI?

As answered above. Our AI System is integrated in the Engine and can easily modified by just scripting. The integrated AI is one of the most advanced in the industry. You will be surprised with our current project Far Cry and the way we push the AI!

If I asked you what would be the most appealing about your engines what would it be?

Our CryENGINE has many appealing features. The most appealing is, that it has so many outstanding features in awesome quality and top performance!

The new “UNREAL” engine is touted to be one of the best if not the best at the moment, incorporating large landscapes. Will yours be able to stand toe to toe with the “UNREAL” engine?

“Large Landscapes”? I think our engine renders the biggest terrain combined with the longest view distance up to 2 km. I don’t think that Unreal is capable of doing this. Moreover our landscapes feature vast detail! Compared to the Unreal Engine, the CryENGINE has higher performance, more polygons per frame and a highly evolved integrated inhouse Physics and AI system.

Polybump engine: what technologies will it include and what part does it play to the “CryENGINE”?

Polybump is independent from CryENGINE. It can be utilized within other engines, they just have to license it ;-) Important is the hardware - it has to support Hardware TnL (at least Geforce1) and Dot-3 Bump-Mapping.

You have 5 keywords to sell your engines to any would be buyers and users; what would they be?

Performance, Unlimited, Physics, AI, WYSIWYPlay-Editor

When can we expect to see your engines in action?

Our Engine will be in Action in our Title Far Cry. Furthermore we sold one license to a Korean company working on a MMOG. Details will be announced when they are ready to do so!
We have not focused licensing our engine until now. Many third parties asked us about licensing our technologies. We want to start on focusing on licensing @ the GDC 2003 in San Jose.

Thank you for taking time off from your busy schedule to answer our questions, any final words?

All what we do at Crytek has a very high quality level and the most important thing is to increase the “FUN”-Level in Games. Simply: “we want be your Entertainment Engine” and of course many many thanks, stay tuned. We are silent, but we work very hard!